Since CREW’s founding in 2003 as a nonpartisan nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, we have achieved major victories holding those who abuse their power to account, compelling the government to be more open and transparent and bringing secret money and influence into the light. And 2023 was one of our busiest and biggest years yet.

We started off 2023 by demanding that George Santos resign from Congress – and by the end of the year, he was removed! And there was a lot more that happened in between…

January 2023: We filed a FEC complaint against Georgia dark-money groups for their spending to influence the 2020 election.

February 2023: The New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision in our case removing Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin from office as disqualified under the 14th amendment because of his role in the January 6 insurrection.

March 2023: Donald Trump was indicted for campaign finance crimes related to his alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and hush money payments to her.

April 2023: We filed a complaint against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from and property sales to billionaire donor Harlan Crow. Then we called on him to resign.

May 2023: George Santos was indicted, and we filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission seeking an immediate investigation into his treasurer.

June 2023: Donald Trump was federally indicted (the first time) for keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, after CREW said *for years* that Mar-a-Lago posed a national security risk and called in a complaint for an investigation of documents violations there.

July 2023: We released a 90-page report detailing the overwhelming evidence that Trump not only engaged in the January 6th insurrection, but that he was disqualified from the ballot as a result.

August 2023: Donald Trump was federally indicted (again) for attempting to overturn an election and exploiting the violent insurrection on January 6th – after CREW’s report, and also after years of loudly making the argument that Donald Trump needed to face accountability.

September 2023: We sued in Colorado to keep Donald Trump off the ballot under the 14th Amendment – the biggest lawsuit we’ve ever taken on at CREW. We also called for Senator Menendez to resign after he was indicted—again—for corruption.

October 2023: Our Colorado lawsuit went to trial.

November 2023: The judge in our lawsuit seeking to bar Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado ruled that Trump incited the January 6th insurrection. That is the first time a judge has ever found that a president engaged in insurrection — which is huge.

December 2023: We WON our lawsuit against Donald Trump to keep him off the Colorado ballot in 2024 when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in our favor. Just one week later, Maine also disqualified Trump, drawing on CREW’s lawsuit.

John, it’s pretty incredible to see the fights we’ve taken on this year and just how much we’ve accomplished. When Representative George Santos and Senator Robert Menendez’s financial scandals were uncovered, CREW was one of the first organizations to call for accountability.

While we were glad Trump was indicted *four* times this year, we knew the job wasn’t done yet. After all, indictments do not necessarily disqualify presidential candidates, but inciting insurrection after swearing an oath to the Constitution does.

We were the first organization to sue Donald Trump to keep him off the ballot in Colorado under Section Three of the 14th Amendment – and we won.

Despite long odds, we continue to have victories large and small, and that’s in large part because of our supporters like you, John. But our work is far from over. Trump is appealing our lawsuit win, so we have to keep up the fight.

We’re a non-profit organization that relies on grassroots donations. We believe strongly in getting our support from people across the country who want to see accountability and transparency in our government.

So if you’re proud of the work CREW has done in 2023, and want to help us continue this work throughout 2024, please consider making a donation today. All donations through the end of the year are matched, doubling your impact →

Thanks for being a part of this team. We couldn’t do this without you,

Noah Bookbinder
President
CREW